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In Brazil, where forest meets savanna, new towns, agribusiness and hydroelectric plants form a patchwork with the indigenous territories. Here, agricultural work, fishing, songs, feasts and exchanges occupy the Enawenê-nawê for eight months of each year during a season called Yankwa. Vital Diplomacy focuses on this major ceremonial cycle to shed new light on classic Amazonian themes such as kinship, gender, manioc cultivation and cuisine, relations with non-humans and foreigners, and the interplay of myth and practice, exploring how ritual contains and diverts the threat of violence by reconciling antagonistic spirits, coordinating social and gender divides, and channelling foreign relations and resources.
“Chloe Nahum-Claudel’s monograph is an excellent addition to anthropology’s repertoire. It weaves together elaborate description with a creative analytical approach that applies to local and regional politics. It also serves as an impressive introduction to Nahum-Claudel’s skills as a rigorous and attentive scholar…All Amazonian scholars and many other anthropologists interested in indigenous politics would benefit from reading Nahum-Claudel’s book, whose elaboration of the concept of diplomacy and use of it in analysing ritual practices represent an important and innovative contribution to the discipline.” • Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“Chloe Nahum-Claudel’s excellent book is the first full-length ethnography in English of the Enawenê- nawê, an Arawakan-speaking group of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso... [It] shows how the concept of diplomacy can be used to frame indigenous struggles over rights and resources in a way which respects indigenous cosmological perspectives.” • Anthropos
“…interesting, thoughtful and well-written… a fine contribution to the ethnography of native lowland South America.” • Harry Walker, London School of Economics and Political Science
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
A Note on Language
Map
Chapter 1. Mastery and Subjection at the Fishing Dams
Chapter 2. The Fishermen Return ‘like Yakairiti’
Chapter 3. Routine Ritualism and a Festival of Abundance
Chapter 4. Affinal Diplomacy in a United, Egalitarian Society
Chapter 5. Cosmic Diplomacy: Cooking, Curing and Crafting Human Life
Chapter 6. Yankwa’s Foreign Diplomacy and Saluma’s Defiance
Bibliography
Index